


After Midnight

by Mix Stitch (Synph)



Series: Wizardverse [28]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prostitution, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Partying, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-01
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-07 03:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synph/pseuds/Mix%20Stitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first of the new year brings unwanted attention and precious surprises. </p><p>(Zeke/Tavares)</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Midnight

**Author's Note:**

> Bloop. First thing finished for 2014 and it’s Zeke missing Tavares and being a big mope. I’m working on descriptive language and getting the image of my characters down so that readers can visualize them. So far I’m not sure how I’m doing with that, but this is a pretty great start for the year.

When the clock in the den strikes midnight, it seems like everyone has someone to kiss and cuddle.

Everyone except Zeke.

Tavares is goddess knows where, far away from Zeke and the life they’re starting to live together, and Zeke is too busy feeling sorry for himself to even pretend to be happy.

Pulling his legs up under his body as he sits in a dark corner of the room, Zeke sighs and reaches for the glass of sparkling water that he’s been nursing all night, grabbing it just so that he has something to do with his hands while he looks at the happy people all around him and mopes.

He could go home. It’s a fifteen minute walk and Zeke is sure that he can get Jasper or one of the other members of the kitchen staff to come with him. But if Zeke goes now, it’ll only make him feel lonelier. With Aries and Mickey away at some boring magic conference for the week, there’s no one around for Zeke to bother and worse — no one around for Zeke to cook for.

At least here at Sasha’s brothel, Zeke is among friends.

Mostly.

"What  _are_  you doing here all by yourself?”

Zeke barely gets any time to register that someone is talking to him before Anna throws herself into the couch besides him hard enough to send her crimson curls flying. Anna isn’t one of Zeke’s friends. She’s one of the top earners at the brothel, even more so now that Zeke only takes a few clients every month, and they’ve done parties together, but they’re not friends. Hell, Zeke doesn’t even  _like_  Anna. She’s rude to him, invasive in her personal questions, and not very nice to his friends to boot.

The fact that she’s decided to come here to bother Zeke instead of staying with the swarthy Cretian pirate serving as her date for the night isn’t a very good sign.

Anna moves into Zeke’s space without asking or waiting for permission, pressing her body against his with a wiggle of her hips that would seem seductive coming from nearly anyone else. She pats Zeke’s thigh with one hand, brightly painted nails tapping over his skin through the thin blue fabric of his pants.

"Don’t you have a lover somewhere that’s supposed to drop everything when you call," Anna asks, fake sincerity dripping from her every word. "Shouldn’t he be here with you?"

When touching Zeke’s leg barely gets him to look at her, Anna changes tactics and reaches up to brush her fingers through his dark hair, invading his space in a way that makes Zeke flinch away from her.

"Tavares had to work," Zeke says, forcing the words out through clenched teeth. "I told you when I —"

Anna cuts Zeke off with an airy wave of one ring-covered hand.

"Oh so you did," she says with this little gasp of shock that makes Zeke feel like stomping away. "I’m sorry, I just couldn’t believe it. Are you sure that he’s working and not…" Anna allows her sentence to trail off, leaving her accusations dangling in the air around them for several moments.

"Is there a point to this?" Zeke doesn’t mean to snap, but it’s late and he’s tired so… snapping happens. "I’m sure you have better things to do than talk about  _my_  boyfriend. Maybe you should worry about keeping  _yours_  in line. He’s been eyeing Tig all night and we both know it.”

It’s not a lie.

From his shadowy corner in the back of the den, Zeke has had a good view of everything going on in the room since Sasha first started handing out drinks.

He’s watched Nagi turn on the charm for his date while Mel and Sade spend the night dancing together to every song that plays on the radio. Noticing how Anna’s pirate for the night has spent more time looking at Tig’s chest tattoos than at his own date’s plunging neckline isn’t the hardest thing that Zeke’s done all night.

Anna swings her head so that she can look at where Tig has the pirate laughing at something he’s saying. Instead of looking where she does, Zeke looks at her, feeling smugness curve his lips up into a smile.

"Maybe you should go take care of that," Zeke says in as neutral a tone as he can while gloating inside at the way things are shaping up for Anna. "Tig’ll have him on his knees in no time if you’re not careful."

Anna leaps to her feet. “Julian wouldn’t do that to me,” she hisses. Despite her words, there’s more than a small amount of panic in her voice. Anna spares a second to flip down the hem of her slinky green dress and then flounces off to interrupt her Julian’s conversation with Tig. She doesn’t spare Zeke another thought and that’s just fine by him.

Once he’s all alone again, Zeke curls his fingers in against the arm of the couch and tries to remind himself that he’s really still fond of almost everyone at the brothel. Spending the night at home in the empty apartments above Aries and Mickey’s store isn’t how Zeke wants to open the new year.

Glancing at his glass, Zeke frowns.

"Maybe I should have asked for liquor instead," he mutters to himself. At least if he could drink, he could pretend that he wasn’t close to opening the new year with a good, deep sulk. Zeke thinks about draining his glass and then getting Jasper to sneak him some of the good stuff, but that requires a lot more movement than Zeke wants to get into. He sighs, dropping his head back against the plush couch cushions as his eyes slide shut until he can see only the faintest flicker of candlelight.

The moment doesn’t last for very long.

Before Zeke can get comfortable again, a shadow passes in front of him. Zeke speaks without opening his eyes. “Don’t you have someone else to bug, Anna?”

Instead of Anna’s husky voice and another round of sniping, the voice that responds to Zeke’s rather sharp question belongs to someone that Zeke likes infinitely more than he does Anna.

"Is that any way to welcome me back, love?"

Zeke knows that voice as well as he knows Sasha’s voice or his own.

"Oh! Tavares!"

Zeke’s eyes fly open and he sits up on the couch, craning his neck so that he can look up at his lover. He takes in the sight of Tavares as though he’s starving, his eyes lingering on where Tavares’s dark skin is marked by bits of ash and what looks like hastily stitched wounds. “You’re back early! I didn’t think that you’d come back before next week.”

Tavares smiles at Zeke before dropping to his knees in front of the couch. He takes Zeke’s hands in his and strokes his thumbs over the backs of Zeke’s soft hands. “I wanted to spend tonight with you,” Tavares says as he looks up at Zeke with a level of tenderness in his gaze that makes Zeke’s face warm with a blush. “I hope I’m not too late.”

Shaking his head hard enough that his braid swings from side to side and thumps against his chest, Zeke says, “Of course not!”

Zeke cups Tavares’s cheeks in his hands, sweeping his thumbs over where stubble darkens his lover’s skin. He ducks his head and presses a quick, chaste kiss to the older demon’s mouth before pulling away and beaming at him.

"I missed you so much, Tav," Zeke breathes, trying to keep his voice from wobbling too much from the depth of emotion filling him. "I was so — so lonely."

Tavares reaches up and brushes several strands of hair off of Zeke’s face, drawing the contact out until it becomes a caress instead of another way of him taking care of Zeke.

"I missed you too," Tavares confesses. The smile on his face reaches up to his bright green eyes. Where his hand curves against Zeke’s cheek, there is a noticeable tremor shaking through his fingers. "Next time, I’ll try to take the month off. Leaving you here was torture."

Zeke turns his head and brushes a kiss over the tips of Tavares’s fingers when they near his mouth. “Well now that you’re here,” Zeke says, “How would you feel about heading up to my room for the rest of the night?”

"And leave the party before Sasha gets a chance to lecture me?" Tavares bares his teeth in a wide grin. "It’s like you can read my mind." 


End file.
